The Familyrelatives.com blog will keep you updated with our latest genealogy news and additions including those for the GRO Birth, Marriage, Death Indexes, Military, Overseas, Parish, Census and other family history records including general historical events in the UK and the USA.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

As many of you are aware Familyrelatives.com was one of the first to introduce social networking specifically designed for both amateur and professional genealogists.

As part of our ongoing commitment to you and in order to enhance and develop the website we will be making a number of changes in the coming months.

We will be making it easier to invite family and friends, add photos, add important dates to your calendar which you may choose to share, we are also developing the home page to make it more informative and allow you to keep in touch with family as well as all the usual features which you have come to love and use.

As the profile side has grown beyond our expectation we need to add capacity to allow additional profiles. As we make these changes we will let you know so that you can make a note of these. We are very excited by these upcoming changes and hope that you will find them useful as an additional tool to tracking down those illusive ancestors.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Familyrelatives.com is proud to announce the addition of 2,000,000 New Navy Records spanning over 160 years. The records of commissioned officers of the Royal Navy dating back 163 years have been published online for the first time by Familyrelatives.com

Familyrelatives.com is pleased to release the most comprehensive online collection of Royal Navy Lists from 1847 to 1945. More than 2 million names are included in the Lists which date from the mid – 19th Century (or the Eleventh Period in Navy History) when Britain was involved in a number of conflicts.

The Royal Navy has played a central role in Britain ’s history for centuries. It is the oldest of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces and is the Senior of the three Services. Founded by Henry VIII a professional and national naval force was in existence when King Charles II came to the throne in 1660. At the time he inherited a huge fleet of 154 ships and it was the beginning of the Royal Navy as we know it today.

British ships and sailors were symbols of the nation’s dominance until the 20th Century but this dominance was driven not only by great naval supremacy and naval leaders but by Britain ’s industrial advance and technology which helped to shape the future of warfare.

From the beginning of the 19th century until well into the 20th century it was the most powerful navy in the world at a time when Great Britain was the world’s only superpower.

The Royal Navy not only protected Britain from attack by its enemies in times of war but projected its power around the world. The Royal Navy along with a smaller number of Trading Company warships controlled the sea lanes enabling trade to precede the flag.

With the establishment of Naval Stations and bunkering points at strategic locations across the globe the British Empire grew to become the dominant world power from 1815 until the Second World War. But the Royal Navy also participated in voyages of discovery and exploration and names such as James Cook, John Franklin, Scott of the Antarctic and Shackleton resound throughout history.

In modern times the Royal Navy, its officers and men fought tenaciously to defend shipping in both World Wars against the threat of blockade and attrition by Britain’s enemies and although there were huge losses there were even more successes with Britain and its allies emerging victorious.

The List runs like a catalogue of history – The Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, the occupation of Beijing and Egypt all of which involved the supply of troops and the protection of troop transports and much later conflicts such as the Boer War and the forcing of the Dardanelles in the First World War.

The Navy Lists contain the details of all Royal Navy and Royal Marine commissioned officers on the Active List of those serving at the time of publication. It was said that every Captain in the Navy had a copy of the list as he was always anxious to know the exact status and seniority of other officers he met.

The information covers every aspect of both Royal Navy and Royal Marine officers whether Active, Retired or on the Reserve Lists, from the date they entered the Service. The List of appointments range from navy and marine cadets to Admirals of the Fleet. Masters and Commanders are featured alongside Physicians, Paymasters and even wounded officers. There is even a section on officers dress regulations, awards and decorations.

An important part of the records is the Lists of Ships in the Navy with their Commanders and Officers names as well as Commissioned Packet Ships and Revenue Vessels, together with captured prize ships and their bounties. For example the 1934 List of Ships and Vessels includes Submarines of the Royal Navy, also the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy arranged in their various classes, their Officers and present Stations. The lists also include RAF Units for Naval Cooperation which was extensive at the time.

The following detailed information is also disclosed; the type of ship and where deployed, the Displacement Tonnage, the indicated horse power or shaft horse power and the main armament. This excludes field guns and machine guns used by the navy as an auxiliary land force as in the siege of Ladysmith. The Name and first names of Officers is shown with an initial denoting his qualification for duties i.e. G for Gunnery duties, T for Torpedo duties, N for Navigating duties, S for Signalling Duties, W/T for Wireless Telegraphy duties, or I paid as an Interpreter. The dates shown are the dates of first appointment to a ship and where two dates are shown for a Marine Officer, the date in brackets indicates when his current sea time commenced.

Who was the Combustible Commodore? An interesting name and character in the Lists shows a George Robert Lambert the “Combustible Commodore” who was despatched by Lord Dalhousie to Burma over a number of minor issues but eventually and deliberately provoked a naval confrontation in extremely questionable circumstances by blockading the port of Rangoon and thus started the Second Anglo-Burmese War his actions led to a Bureaucratic cover up at the time.

Familyrelatives.com Navy records date back to 1660 during the time of Charles II earlier mentions of the Navy Royal can be found in the Oxford National Biography which includes details of great Naval Leaders such as Sir Francis Drake, James Cook and Robert Blake.

Recent records include those of the First and Second World Wars and later lists include the Naval Forces of the Colonies and the Dominion Naval Forces (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa), Naval Colleges, Yards, Depots with the names of the Principal and other Officers in charge.